Mentra develops an open source operating system for smart glasses
The start-up Mentra is working on an open source alternative to smart glasses operating systems from the big tech companies.
The Mentra Live AI glasses to be released in the fall.
(Image: Mentra)
Mentra has completed a financing round amounting to eight million US dollars. At the same time, the company announced the MentraOS 2.0 operating system and its first smart glasses model, Mentra Live, for this fall. Similar to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Mentra Live is equipped with a camera, microphone and loudspeakers, but is primarily aimed at companies and developers. The smart glasses will cost pre-order customers 250 US dollars and will begin shipping in the fall.
The MentraOS operating system is optimized for all-day use, AI applications and cloud-native apps. Among other things, it supports live subtitling, translation, notifications and an AI assistant. Another smart glasses model with an integrated display is planned for early 2026, which will make full use of these functions. The operating system is already compatible with the Even Realities G1 and Vuzix Z100 smart glasses.
Google plans to provide developer tools for smart glasses this year
Mentra was founded in 2024 by Cayden Pierce and Alexander Israelov in San Francisco and Shenzhen. Current investors include Android co-founder Rich Miner, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim and the venture departments of Toyota and Amazon.
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According to Forbes, the start-up wants to earn money through fee-based developer accounts and revenue shares from app sales, a model similar to that used by Apple with the App Store and Google with the Play Store. However, it is unlikely to be easy to attract developers and hardware partners for MentraOS. Not least because Google will be releasing developer tools for smart glasses based on Android XR this year. The company announced in May that it was working with Samsung on a software and hardware platform for smart glasses from third-party providers.
Meta has not yet presented a developer platform for its smart glasses, but an announcement could be made in the fall. Apple remains a question mark: according to a forecast by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the company's first smart glasses are not expected before 2027.
(dahe)
